Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Future of the Web = Telepresence

What will be the next big thing after Blogs, Podcasting, and Video Posts?

I have declared it to be Blog Conferencing, where, via live web cams, users will interact with you and each other in a live interplay, or will record audio and video for later consumption. I think the text post with text commentary is a dinosaur that is being laid to rest.

BEHOLD: personal computers and laptops are already being sold with mandatory embedded video appliances, that are built right into the unit, what they're calling "integrated web cameras".

For example, the new Lenovo ThinkPad Z61.

This moving beyond text blogging will be a welcome change for the vast majority of users, who are not comfortable with their reading and writing skills. Jakob Nielsen says reading text online is a pain, especially lengthy dissertations. I agree. Long text is better consumed by printing it out and reading it away from the computer.

But let's go still farther out, shall we?

Blogs may evolve into virtual worlds where visitors come and interact with simulations of you, your company, your showroom floor, your inventory, your services. Second Life is demonstrating strides in this direction.

Beyond that, what?

You can probably guess it.

Telepresence: projecting a illusory but realistic 3D image, a floating digital embodiment of your self, into the room of the user. People don't just interact with your text, photos, audio, or video. They interact with an electronic simulation of you. Your online surrogate, your web representative, your cyber-clone.

I quote now PC Magazine, August 8, 2006 issue, page 68:

"...Calit2 in San Diego are using super high definition projectors, wall size screens, and extreme Internet connections to relay images and sounds that are barely distinguishable from reality. In the future, this may enable full 'telepresence', the illusion that another person is physically present when he or she is actually in another location."

Physical screens will give way to water vapor and other types of electro-ethereal screens, planes of near-immateriality upon which to transfer and embody your illusory body. People will ask not only "what did you do today?", but also "what did your illusory compu-telepathic body do today?"

These technologies exist and are being perfected for the consumer market now.

Just think.

No more writing our boring blog posts, or rambling on needlessly in podcasts, or hamming it up in front of a camera for videos.

We'll be creating simulated clones who will be programmed to represent our expertise, talents, tastes, personalities, beliefs, opinions, criticisms, fears, quirks, and dreams. Then that will be projected out of a portal hole in the user's computer, and a digital telepresent you will pop out, materializing before their eyes.

A you they can see and hear, eventually even touch.

A new porn industry will arise, unfortunately, where men will be able to electronically conjure up a hot babe, that they can either actually have sex with physically, or at least play coy voyeur-exhibitionistic games with as they practice self-abuse (archaic term for pleasuring oneself).

Or you could make your product materialize in an illusory body, and customers could examine it more closely, in the comfort of their homes.